China spots 'suspicious objects' in Indian Ocean

A Chinese plane spotted "some suspicious objects" in the area where satellite images have indicated possible debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Monday morning that the Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft's crew spotted the objects and communicated their location to the Australian command center leading the Indian Ocean search, and to a Chinese ice breaker ship en route to the area.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), the agency coordinating the international search effort in the Indian Ocean, confirmed it had received the coordinates from the Chinese.

"The reported objects area within today's search area and attempts will be made to relocate them," AMSA said in a written statement.

It wasn't immediately clear how far the ship was from the remote patch of ocean, about 1,500 miles southwest of Australia's west coast, where large pieces of possible debris from the Boeing 777 have been seen on satellite images. Search planes have scanned the area for days without any luck locating the floating objects.

Rain was expected to hamper the hunt Monday for debris suspected of being from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, as the United States prepared to move a specialized device that can locate black boxes into the south Indian Ocean region.

The U.S. Pacific command said it was sending a black box locator in case a debris field is located. The Towed Pinger Locator, which is pulled behind a vessel at slow speeds, has highly sensitive listening capability so that if the wreck site is located, it can hear the black box pinger down to a depth of about 20,000 feet, Cmdr. Chris Budde, a U.S. Seventh Fleet operations officer, said in a statement.

"This movement is simply a prudent effort to preposition equipment and trained personnel closer to the search area so that if debris is found we will be able to respond as quickly as possible since the battery life of the black box's pinger is limited," Budde said.

There was no sign the move was because of any break in the mystery of the plane that went missing March 8 with 239 people on board, but rather as a preparation.